Unlike television, and really most other vampires with a touch sanity, Carter kept his fangs out. I could tell, because they made his chapped lips part a little, exposing another breech in vampire clichés in that vampires’ only ridged teeth where their incisors. No, a real vampire’s teeth were all ridged and sharp, designed for tearing into flesh.
Carter smiled sometimes, usually right before a mangling, from what I’d heard. And he also laughed…but allegedly that was whenever his quarry decided to run. I will say that I’d actually heard him chuckle once, maybe twice. Both times had been at reruns of The Simpsons.
“Hey, Carter…Lyle at home?” I didn’t make eye contact, not wanting to rev up his predatory engines. I looked past him instead, expecting to see the gold hair of my friend peek around the corner and rescue me from this trained killer whose blood was cold, and who coincidentally killed in cold blood.
“What choo’ want wit’em?” His accent was drenched in Smalltown, USA and hacked up in a meat grinder that gave him a rumbling country twang, which would have been hilarious and jovial had he worn a Coor’s in either hand and a John Deer baseball cap while he bellowed merry laughs behind red sunburned cheeks and banters about football. But that wasn’t the case.
“He asked me to come over…to talk,” I muttered, staring at the cement stairs.
“Didn’t tell me you were comin’.” His hands were in the sole pocket of his hoody. At least I’d have an extra millisecond to get away if he tried to reach for me.
“I can come back,” I replied, terrified to argue and escalate Carter from lunatic to psychiatric.
“Rebekah.” Lyle called my name from behind me, which scared me more after I considered it. What if I’d walked into the house looking for Lyle and ended up alone with that nutjob?
I jumped into a happy mood when I turned to Lyle, pretending of course, so that I didn’t make the encounter with Carter more awkward than it already was. The door slammed hard once Carter realized that he was no longer needed, leaving Lyle and me outside to talk.
“Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t at home, you jerk?”
“How was I supposed to know what time you were coming over? There’s over a thousand ways to get a message out these days. A phone call, a text, a Tweet, a Facebook message, Instagram, Tango, Google plus—”
“I know. I just thought you’d be home,” I interjected, eyes closed in frustration at my near death experience. “You’ve really got to get this guy to move out.”
“As soon as you tell him, I’ll be the first to agree.” Lyle pulled his keys out of his pants pocket.
I knew that was lie, and so did he. If I even hinted to Carter that he needed to get his own place, Lyle would back out of the conversation before I could even finish speaking. “Where are you coming from anyway?” I asked.
“Unlike some people, I do have to work this week. Third shift is killing me.” The bags under his eyes were evidence enough. “Carter give you a hard time?”
“More like an impossible time,” I whispered. Then I realized that Carter could probably hear us even though we were outside in the cold – whether we whispered or not – so I changed the subject. “I went to work today too.” I didn’t mention how I didn’t have to actually work.
“Any luck?”
I nodded and tapped my coat pocket. “Tell you later,” I said, not wanting to blab about Alex, not while Alex was still figuring things out. He could hear our conversation, after all.
You might have expected that Alex would ask about Carter, but truth is, Alex probably had no idea I was talking to Carter. Vampires don’t have a soul, so they don’t have an aura. Alex probably only heard me talking, but didn’t hear anyone responding. So he probably thinks I’m crazy….great.
“Did you already ask Carter to help with your little Druid problem?” Lyle asked.
“Did I ask?” he whispered. “I thought you were going to ask.”
The door opened again, and Carter dammed the doorway like a cork in a bottle of champagne. He scratched his beard with a fingernail that was half the length of my thumb. “Heard m’name,” he confessed, always being abrupt. “Heard sum’m ‘bout a Druid too.”
I froze, nudging Lyle with my eyes to speak up. After some unintelligible murmurs that caused Carter to scrunch half of his face and lend us his ear to hear better, Lyle said, “We might be in a bit of trouble.”
“Trouble comes like dogs. Shows up at ya’ door, eats wut’ you got, and leaves you broke and bare. But a man’s troubles ain’t nothin’ but his own. Don’t see wut’ you need me for.”
After he’d said his due, his hand grabbed the edge of the door to close it, and for that brief second, I became undone, realizing that if we didn’t get Carter’s help, we’d never find the Druid to get more information out of her about Marcus. And if we couldn’t get Marcus to help us against Castella, then without question, Lyle and I would be dead – that was, if Lyle wasn’t too scared himself to help me out.
“What about a woman’s troubles?” I said. “Are a woman’s troubles her own?”
That made Carter hold the door open longer than he’d intended. Those snake eyes beamed at me, though I never rose my gaze to meet his. “Reckon that might be grounds for a tussle ‘er two.”
I couldn’t decide if the tussle he was referring to had anything to do with making a meal of us. My instinct demanded that I take my concerns and get away from there as soon as I could, but I couldn’t move. My feet were planted to the ground while I waited for Carter to agree to come along, or burst into a bear-like mauling.
“Wut’ choo’ got yo’self into?”
“A mess,” I said, slowly looking away from him. “Marcus sent a Druid to my place to heal me from some gunshot wounds. Come to find out, the Druid’s probably working with a Voodoo priestess.”
“Or priest,” Lyle uttered.
Carter snapped his obsidian eyes over to Lyle. “Lady’s talkin’.” And that was all he said. No threat or warning mentioned. It was all there in two words.
Lyle’s apology came out as more of a submission, his eyes falling to the ground as he shuffled a few leaves with his Converses.
“Dis’ Druid gotta’ name?” Carter asked, his belly bobbing.
“Stephanie,” I replied. “She’s got a lot of tattoos, mostly ancient spiral insignias.”
“Say where she was goin’?”
I shook my head.
“Where’d ya’ see her last?
“At my place…just around the block.” I pointed across the street beyond the apartments that we could see. Mine were just on the other side of those.
“I know where you live,” he said. That knifed me hard. I tried not to show it. “Wut’ form did the Druid take when she left ya’?”
“Not sure. I was in too much pain to follow her.” I touched the wounded area that Stephanie had sewn up, and Carter’s eyes locked onto the location of the injury, unmoving.
Growing uncomfortable, I shied away, turning my right side away from him. His head rose from my side and sniffed upwards, twisting his nose. His gaze followed an invisible thread in the air while his hands remained in his pockets. When the invisible tail offered him no more answers, he stepped outside, his heavy boots thudding on the chewing-gum plastered cement stairs.
He must have found the trail again, because his eyes traced a line down from Gorman Street to a place far beyond the rising road that neither Lyle nor I could see. But I knew that Carter could see it with those predatory eagle eyes.
“Headed down south, she did,” Carter said, still tracing Stephanie’s trail with his senses. “Looks like a crow form, or possibly a raven. We go chasin’ this Druid and we catch her, wut’s in it for me?”
That thought hadn’t crossed my mind – the fact that we’d owe Cater something. What could we offer a trained killer who could get anything he wanted except peace and sanity? Ourselves? I took the humble approach. “What would you like?”
What happened next made me certain
that I was sure to be mangled.
He smiled.
And since I’d only heard about him doing that just before turning some man or woman into his version of a Ruby Red Slurpee, I embarrassed myself like an idiot city girl who’d never been face to face with a growling predator like Carter before.
I screamed.
I mean, I screamed loud – 9-1-1 style, hands over my face and knee up to my neck. I even had the ending bravado after the yelp that was nothing more than a vibrating “ahhh!”
After my foot touched the ground again, and my hands lowered from my face – embarrassing stupidity still lingering – Mr. 20/20 came by – you know…hindsight. My first reaction should have been to conjure a summon, or something more professional than a yipping dog shrill. Also, I didn’t have to demean myself as a city girl, because anyone who’d seen a predator like Carter rear up might have at least lost a little bit of her cool, right? In the end, the extreme paranoia had probably saved my life, because had I conjured a summon, then Carter might have amped up the aggression, thereby ripping my head off and tearing into some me-flesh.
Not to mention, now he was laughing and I wasn’t fleeing, and remarkably…I was still alive – for now at least. Lyle sniggered too, albeit uneasily, probably still concerned himself that Carter might just go ballistic at any minute. This was my time to smile and wipe my sweaty forehead – out here in the freezing cold, might I add – just before asking Carter, “Can we at least give you some money for helping us?” My thumping heart did not let my voice come out steadily.
Carter’s beefy grin didn’t fade when he shook his head and replied. “Don’t need your money. A date’ll be much more better.”
Chapter
TWELVE
A date? Lyle’s slob of a deadbeat roommate wanted to take me out on a date – one of the few things that I’d ever refuse Carter of, besides my blood, of course. But I had to respond before my mouth widened from the thinking pose to the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me position. And it was deteriorating fast.
“A date?” I said, shrugging and frowning, though my eyebrows arched upwards to show that I wasn’t completely opposed to the idea – a nonverbal lie. “What kind of date?” Idiot, I called myself. You know exactly what kind of date. A date-date.
Carter tilted his head to the side, falling into his version of Romeo. Great. “I find yer’ Druid…for a romantic dinner for two.”
I glanced at Lyle to help me out. He, in turn, looked away, scratching the back of his head. He’s gonna’ pay for this later. As far as a romantic dinner with Carter was concerned, what exactly did that consist of? Extra large rack of ribs and a side of human hindquarters? No thanks. But somehow, staring at the predator had a way of making me submit to his demands, almost if there was something alluring about him, not that I was enticed by any means. What could a date hurt though? Boyd would be anything but jealous if he ever saw the guy. He’d probably give me a hard time for even stooping that low, if anything.
“Agreed,” I said, though it probably came out sounding more like a question.
“A date it is,” Carter replied. “Now I’mma’ hold you to it now.” He pointed his black talon of a fingernail at me.
“Okay…” Lyle said, jingling his keys with a flip.
With a lion’s feral growl, Carter glanced up again, tracing the trail with his eyes, his fangs glaring. A nod of his head down Gorman told us the direction we should head.
We hopped in Lyle’s tan Maxima and high-tailed it in whatever directions Carter gestured for us to go, he himself, keeping the passenger’s side window down with his nose poking out, letting blizzard-like air rush into the back seat where I was sitting. I kept my opinion to myself.
After about five miles, we ended up on Holly Springs Road at some of the fancier houses in the area, each of them set on hills and hidden behind plush boscage that had mostly fallen away due to winter’s arrival. We parked several houses down from the one that Carter led us to, and we crept to the location, halting when Carter held a hand back to us, kneeling low as his gaze followed Stephanie’s trail to the house which was set off from the road.
“Betcha’ a lamb’s leg yer’ Druid’s in there.”
Lyle came along Carter’s left side, peering through the trees of empty leaves that had fallen and blanketed the ground. “That’s an awfully large house for just one Druid to be living in,” he said.
My hand found the obelisk in my pocket, rubbing over it with my thumb. The stone responded by heating up, emitting a faint pink glow. “You think the Voodoo priestess might be in there too?”
“Not sure,” Lyle replied. “I can go and check it out.”
Carter shook his head, half-frowned, not taking his eyes off the gravel path, which led to the front porch. “Don’t reckon that’s the best use of yer’ faculties. Need you at yer’ best when we go inside…case things get a bit rowdy.”
“Carter’s right,” I said. “Besides, I get the feeling that there are more in that house than we think. And with a few wards and Empyrean traps, they’d have you hanging from one of those trees like the clocks from the Dalí painting. Carter, can you see any of the Empyrean traps?”
“A few of’em. Mostly blue wires and… What the…” He leaned in closer, staring at something in a branch that neither Lyle nor I could see. “Sonuva—”
Whatever Carter had seen thrummed loudly like a crossbow. When it hit Carter, it knocked him backwards and horizontal in mid-air, his legs flailing before he hit the ground. A wooden stake materialized out of his chest, a few inches from his heart, the wound sizzling, spewing black smoke in chimney plumes.
Without hesitating, Lyle braced one foot on Carter’s man-boob and ripped the stake out of him.
Despite the hole in his chest, Carter was taking it as well as any skewered boar might, cursing and spitting as he staggered to his feet. That was when I saw the side of him that I feared, the side I dreaded, the side of him that I’d heard Lyle mention to me with cold, quivering eyes – the predatory psychotic side.
Though the wound smoldered from a few splinters that remained inside, the hole began to fuse together. Carter’s sclera dissented into the dark black of his pupils.
For a predator like Carter, when the English language lacked the right curses or swears, usually a growl sufficed. And that’s what he did – a growl so fierce that I felt the grumble in the pit of my gut. With the speed of a cheetah, or faster maybe, Carter tore from the driveway of the house. Invisible crossbow bolts thrummed at him. With sideswipes and backhands, he shattered the invisible quarrels that exploded into visible shreds on impact.
Empyrean traps burst into flames at his feet, whistling as he tripped them. Fires shot up his leg, which might have killed him had he not dropped to the ground and barreled around until he smothered the flames, still advancing towards the house.
Lyle shook his hands loose, stepping backwards. Fur sprouted from his skin. His muscles widened, and his nose protruded into a snout as he decanted, the form a black bear enveloping him. He reared back several times, pounding the ground with his front paws, grunting. With a hefty shake of his head, he galloped after Carter, staying within the beaten trail that Carter had blazed to be sure not to trip any traps that had been out of Carter’s path of carnage.
he replied.
That was all the consent I needed to summon the earth elemental. My hand, which hadn’t left the obelisk, continued thumbing the side. I could sense Alex’s hesitancy just before his undivided acceptance. His thoughts combined with mine as I knelt down and pressed all five fingers into
the soil, pushing them as deep as the knuckles.
The voices in the soil murmured in a chaotic chorus like chanting whispers, each of them speaking unintelligible words. A gentle swooping thought merged the earth with Alex, the two becoming one. The ground rumbled and quaked, bringing forth a mound of dirt as high as a termite hill.
Loose rubble tumbled from the mound until the sides of the hill hardened into skin that became like pelt, thick with muscles and stretched taut. Horns grew from its boar head, and hooves formed on its feet. When it grunted, a cooling mist wafted from between its tusks, then vanished.
The earth elemental snarled as it raced forward, with me at its heels. The door was a gaping hole, now that Carter had burst through the threshold and the brick siding. He’d already mangled two bodies and was laughing as one took to fleeing – a vampire’s dream. The more of a fight the prey put up, the warmer the blood.
The runner, a young man dressed in a gray sweat jacket and jeans, made it into the living room just as Carter yoked him by the collar, pulling the man’s head backwards while his legs kicked forward. Carter’s fangs tore into the man’s neck mid-scream, shredding out his windpipe and making the scream dwindle into blood-gurgles.
Two men came towards me, both with leather jackets, each in step with the other, bleached hair trimmed an inch from the scalp – Gemini-twins, linked by thoughts and psyche. When the first struck at my head, the second kicked at the back of my knee.
Umara had trained me in the Korean martial art of Taekwondo, so I blocked the first blow, rotating my forearm outwards. The kick I blocked with my shin, which made the bone shimmer inside. Before the first Gemini could react, a jumping front kick met him in the chin, and a backwards hook kick flew towards the other.
Right when my foot met his head, my earth elemental fired a fist into his chest so hard that he flew through the foyer drywall and crashed into the kitchen. Shrapnel either crumpled to the auburn-tiled floor or swirled in midair. The Gemini’s brother invoked as much power and strength as he could muster into a strike at the body of the elemental, followed by a flurry of punches to the elemental’s midsection.
Seize the Soul: Confessions of a Summoner Book 1 Page 9
